Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

T-Mobile has dropped their main sponsorship from their Bob Stapleton run cycling team. The news comes after Adidas dropped sponsorship of the team in light of the ongoing-neverending doping stories surrounding the team. The team will not disband as T-Mobile’s contract was set to go until December 2010 and there must be a decent enough [...]

AP Photo/Daniel Maurer

T-Mobile decided to stay in the sport of cycling and keep sponsoring its top German team. The decision was made after several high profile admissions to past doping by 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis, Ralf Aldag and house sprinter Erik Zabel. After these revelations came the bombshell of Patrik Sinkewitz’s non-negative [...]

RICHARD MARTIN/AFP/Getty Images

Just when German cycling looked to be cooked along comes a new sensation to light up the sport for the Bavarians. With Jorge Jascke hogging German TV, talking about how he made his small fortune by doping while lots of great actions goes by unnoticed. The German government wants to remove funding for [...]

(pic from Yahoo News)

“I am ending my active career,” Ullrich said.
He criticized the way he had been treated by cycling officials in Germany and Switzerland and by the German media.
“I feel like a serious criminal although I have nothing to reproach myself,” he said.
Ullrich said he was still fit and had received offers from seven [...]

Looks like Alejandro Valverde will not be donning a magenta jersey after all. Now for my Stephan Colbert moment: Just as I predicted earlier, the Valverde move to T-Mobile was not going to happen. Team manager Eusebio Unzué was able to press the sponsors to extend deals or put in more money. There was enough [...]

The on-again off again, confirmed but not confirmed move to T-Mobile is not a dead deal yet. The story keeps being denied, but then fresh reports come back to show that there just may be a link between Alejandro Valverde moving to T-Mobile for a price of $10 million Euros for the next three years. [...]

(pic from Flickr user das jan)
The T-Mobile overhaul continued this week with Mattais Kessler and Andreas Kloden joining old buddies Walter Goodefroot and Alexandre Vinokourov at Astana. It seems like a mini T-Mobile reunion at the Kazak based team.
Kloden’s move to Astana must mean that he does not have many hopes for a high overall [...]

(pic from Eurosport)
Jan Ullrich was shown no love by T-Mobile management. After lying about his relationship with Dr. Fuentes and the cloud surrounding Operation Puerto, T-Mobile have given the boot to Der Kaiser. Jan Ullrich is now out of a job and he is PO’d about the way in which T-Mobile informed him of the [...]

(pic from Yahoo!)
Floyd Landis did not dominate the first Time Trial of the Tour de France, but he performed better than any other GC contender which puts him in a great spot. Second place would probably have other guys stomping their fists on the handlebars, but Gonchar was far and above all of the competition [...]

Bjarne Riis feels very confident in Ivan Basso and is riding a wave of success in the Classics. With all this good fortune despite a beat up team, the former Tour de France winner decided to throw some smack Ullrich way after seeing his poor form up close an personal in Tuscany.
“It’s clear that he [...]